An Delen Dir

If the world was truly a rational place, men would ride sidesaddle. “So what do you think this is?” Foster asked Straker in a quiet aside, both of them saddling their horses. The alien device had gone into one of the electronics chests with Foster’s help. “Mind or mood altering rays,” Straker shrugged. “It’s not the first time they influenced the human psyche. Let’s wait and see what Jackson…

Chapter 6 Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyways. “Colonel Freeman,” Ford’s tinny voice blared from the intercom in Straker’s office. “Could you please come to the control room, sir?” Alec looked up, puzzled. It was, as Straker usually called it, the graveyard shift, and up to now it had been dead quiet indeed. He rose much more fluently than a man his size and mass usually…

“Where do you think you are going?“ Straker pivoted on his heels, barely able to keep himself from falling into a defensive crouch. The voice was a lively, southern London banter, young and markedly devoid of respect. Respect he considered his due, given his stripes and pilot’s coverall. The speaker lounged lazily against the hangar’s corrugated iron, arms folded, eyes hidden behind sunglasses and wearing a British version of his…

Chapter 4 As distance shows a horse’s strength, so time reveals a person’s heart. “You’re becoming quite an okay rider, Ed,” Foster said drily. “You held on to the reins.” Everyone at the large kitchen table laughed good-naturedly, including Straker. The sun had set at last, giving way to a leaden, cloud-covered night sky. All eight of them had gathered around the huge slab of moor oak which served as…

Chapter 2 Riding: The art of keeping a horse between you and the ground. In the end Straker had decided to use a local airline rather than expose one of their own machines on a flight to Reykjavik. Thus it had been Iceland Air which had taken them to Keflavík International Airport. Now Paul Foster and he were sitting in a small charter plane bound for east-coast Egilsstadir Airport. If…

Prologue Dagur Stilgarsson knew he was dying. He had known the moment he had touched the housing of the multiplexing unit. The secret service technician shifted his weight in an attempt to reach his duffel bag, and the mobile in it. He had to warn Reykjavík headquarters about the trap which was killing the fourth agent just now. Even though his lanky frame moved but mere inches, he could feel…

She looked up when a shadow moved through her peripheral vision. No business being there, the sightdogs all accounted for, no one else in the house. No one. Figment of her imagination that was. With a sigh she bent to her task again. It was hot, and humid, one of those summer days she did not much like. “What do you listen to there?” She was startled and her mood…